Friday, 18 December 2015

Review: The Actual Roger #4

Story and art: Hank Tucker

Publisher: Alterna Comics

Release date: 16th December 2015 (Digital)

This week saw Alterna's digital release of The Actual Roger #4, which sees the 9 year old super sidekick on the run and heading towards confrontation with the diabolical mastermind behind everything so far. This is a fun and irreverent series that doesn't take itself too seriously and pays dividends in not doing so.

Now The Actual Roger is a fun read. The script is irreverent and humourous, Roger himself is a fun character and the cast is a tapestry of well thought out characters with well defined personalities and traits. So this all adds to a comic that bucks superhero trends and is all the better for it.

However I found it difficult to be entirely absorbed and lose myself in the panels while I was reading. Hank Tucker does a good job of fleshing out his ideas and turning his story into sequential art, though I think maybe he had too many ideas, that he is trying to convey too much all at once. This leads to some rather cluttered panels and pages that are difficult to follow and stunt the pace of the book awkwardly.

I just feel that if Tucker had took a deep breath and prioritised some of the information and narrative a little smoother it would of flowed much better.

That being said, when you get your head around what's happening this is a fun comic that does bring a smile to your face with some quirky humour and action.

This isn't just something you can dip into though, so if you're interested a in a fun superhero story that steps away from convention, you'll probably want to start with #1 and catch up.

Overall the story does suffer a little from the overstuffed panels and clunky pacing as mentioned, but it's still a fun and interesting read and adds to Alterna's solid line up of independent comics.

At £1.49 on comixology, it won't sting your wallet either, so it's well worth a look.